Author Topic: Nov/21-2003  (Read 7089 times)

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Offline Geoff

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Nov/21-2003
« on: November 22, 2003, 10:55:40 AM »
It's been 10 days or so since i posted and many areas are starting to take shape.

The Pass rear corner needed some attention and that is where I'll start.
Matt from AutoMATTic autobody came to work on the body last week and as you can see below he had it looking good in no time.
Matt smoothed out the corner and 1/4 pannel and then i gave it a few coats of primer.




Below you can see how straight Matt has made the pannel, This is just the first stage and it will need to be blocked before it is finished.



Next job was cutting away the damaged and rusty metal on the drivers side rear 1/4. This job was made worse by the previous owner due to his poor repair job. There will be a lot of heat shrinking needed to get this pannel back in shape.



Here you can see how the old owner hacked out a area and then atempted to repair it by welding in a repail panel. This is by far the worst area on the bus.



Above, the pannel is cut away and a new one can be fitted.

At the same time a new inner brace was needed in front of the rear wheel, this is the start of it, later a bracket was welded to it ,this in turn is welded to the outer skin.


Below, you can now see the bracket welded on top and a new splash panel that was made to repair the inner fender well.(painted silver)


Next, same area from wheel well.



Christmas came early this year. My Brother bought me a air longboard and let me tell you, this thing kicks ass! This will make getting the pannels straight a lot more enjoyable.......if there is such a thing :wacko:




Test fit of new pannel. This pannel is all you can but and for the most part it will work fine. The big draw back it that it is much thinner than the orig so i will use as little as possible. That being said, it makes welding this in much more difficult. I used a heavy gauge lower rocker with this part and that means more welds. For starters i am just learning to weld (as you can tell)  Long welds on big pannels can lead to some serious warps. I took my time and it came out better that i thought.



Here it is tacked.

And about three hours later, all done!




Next came Matt to try and get all the dents out from the previous owners accidents.
Matt used his heat shrinking gun and pulling tools to get the pannel looking beautiful. There was some major damage to this side and when done you will never know it was there.
(smile Matt)

It's hard to tell here but it's looking straight!


Tonight we will get some filler and maybe some primer on and it will be that much closer to being done!

One other area i have been working on is the guages. The stock guage cluster just wont cut it. There are a few problems with it, no tach, no oil psi, oil tank level and the speedo is set far to low :P

The stock gauge shown below.


Here is what i have come up with so far, a 120mph speedo, 6 cyl tach and a oil tanl level and fuel guage. There will be some idiot lights that i will have to add as these guages are lacking them. I will also add a oil psi, temp guages in the stock raidio hole so that all the vitals are covered.


Thats it for this instalment. back in a few days with more updates.
« Last Edit: November 23, 2003, 11:50:03 PM by Forum Master »